This site is no longer maintained. My current site is available at http://www.gmetrail.com

The views and comments expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent my employer’s positions, products, strategies or opinions.

Visiting the UK, Part IV and End – Heading South East

2900 miles (about 4700 km) and over 1000 photos later, our two weeks tour of the UK is over! What a beautiful country. And the best part was that most of the places we did go were not packed with tourists. Coming down from Scotland (see my previous blog entry) on the East cost, we stopped many times on the way to visit York, Cambridge or Hastings, just to name a few places.
What a tour. The UK, or at least what we saw from it, is really amazing. Very different landscapes, from coast-sides to lakes and “mountains” (yes, I know, not as high as Switzerland, but still). On our way down South from Scotland, we stop at yet another National Trust called Cherryburn House.

Continuing our way down, we visited York. Beautiful city center, and with that many pedestrian zones, it makes a really nice place to wander around. We then headed towards Cambridge, continuing the use or the B1234 rule as much as possible. The first time we experienced some rain during our tour was the evening we arrived in Cambridge. This was great as it cooled the temperatures a little down. For those who don’t live in the UK, don’t laugh! We had a heat-wave during our tour, with a peak at 36 degrees Celsius in Wales… not really what you would expect when you listen to the rumors about this country. Anyway, the sky was clear the next morning and Cambridge is yet another of these beautiful cities that you need to stop are enjoy.

We intentionally decided to leave London out of the tour, but one of the only possibility to go from Cambridge towards Canterbury down in the South East is to take the M25… lucky us, it was early afternoon and we avoided the major traffic. Our journey South East ended shortly after Canterbury, and then started going west again. We stopped at Bodiam Castle near Hastings. This is the National Trust that is featured on the back of the 2006 guide and is completely surrounded by water.

Continuing west, we stopped in Hastings. The place called “The Mermaid” (I believe) has the best Fish & Chips I had so far… thank you David for your recommendation. Well worth the detour just for that

This concludes our two weeks tour of the UK. I won’t say it enough: what a beautiful country. I’ll need to do the same in Switzerland one day. To finish my blog entries about this tour, I wanted to make a little advertisement for the nicest Bed-and-Breakfasts we stayed during our tour.